Monday, February 16, 2009

From The Archives

I'm away on a non-bicycle-related vacation so I've dug this one out of the pre-Big Bikes archives. This was an email I sent out to some friends after a particularly eventful New Year's Day group ride out in Marin, CA a few years back. Please excuse the formatting and glaring flaws, I chose not to edit it at all and leave it in its original, somewhat raw state

New Year's Day 2006.

Once upon a time the idea of waking up at 8AM on New Year's Day wouldhave seemed anathema to me, today it just seemed incredibly painful.Prior to the scheduled ride I had to install a new front derailleuron Mo's bike and take a hike up the street to get some photos of themassive mudslide which had taken out a large gazebo, two SUVS, and aMercedes, as well as partially destroying a 2 million dollar home. Imanaged to pull all this off with a couple minutes to spare, none theless we still somehow showed up so late to the ride that it was comingtoward us as we rolled into to downtown Fairfax. I was shocked, it wasa pretty huge crew, especially for a rainy cold day, a rainy cold newyear's day morning no less, the final head count was 17.

Like all rides in Marin this one began with a couple hours ofclimbing, immediately the group became strung out, I followed Ron and"Crazy" Andy (thus called due to the fact that he is known to ride afixed gear on mt. bike rides in a pair of SPD sandals and crash alot) the three of us were on single speeds so the climbing pace wasmore comfortable. The slower you go, the more you grind. At the top ofthe climb we had to wait a while for the full crew to assemble.

Bringing in the rear was a guy in a fullface helmet, complete bodyarmor, with a fluorescent yellow rain cover over his huge backpack,all that and he's riding a ten year old hard tail with rim brakes.From the get go I knew this guy was trouble. We dubbed him "FullFaceFred" as in "who are we waiting for?" "oh, just FullFaceFred". Andwait we did.

As the ride progressed it ended up being me and Ron on the front,him leading and me holding on for dear life. Don't think I mentionedthat Ron is 46, 46 but with3% body fat, total Ned Overend type. After what seemed like hours, oh wait, it was hours we arrived atthe top the climb,my legs officially ripped off. When the group was intact the "CandyJuice" emerged,a concoction of Ron's rumored to be based in Swiss Rum. Whatever it isit looks like brake fluid and tastes like, well... brake fluid.Properly hydrated we started the traverse i.e. the fun part. Here Petewent to the front, I took up a position a few folks back, virtuallyeveryone in this group was an unknown to me and I didn't want to getin anyone's way. This traverse is pretty hairy on a good day, butafter the storms and mudslides new elements were added to theequation: head-high blown down branches,unridable-killyadead-washouts, and sections of trail blocked bytangles of full-size trees washed downhill by the slides. We had onlyhad one guy go over the edge and he was able to arrest his fall onsome shrubbery and escape unscathed.

We came to the true downhill portion of the ride and waited for FullFaceFred.Now here I thought we'd see Fred's true power, I thought that althoughhe was upwardly challenged that perhaps he was a sort of down hillthriller, waiting in the wings to school us all on the descent. Afterwitnessing him ride down a wet staircase with his brakes fully locked,front wheel twitching back and forth, rear wheel levitating, barelygetting away with it, I knew this was far from the case.I was able to stay almost within site of Pete on the real nastystuff, dabbing several times, sliding through some sections one footout, letting out all kinds of bizarre vocalizations, but nevercompletely coming off the bike.

As we waited at the next juncture two hikers with telescopic hikingpoles, high-gaiters, and wide-brimmed hats came bearing down on us,I'd heard that these were the type of people who might give a mountainbiker a hard time...sure enough"Did one of you see a large mushroom back there, pick it, and thenthrow it in the air?" "no, why?" "oh, because a large mushroom justmysteriously fell out of the sky and hit her on the head". Just like amountain biker to a.) notice a mushroom while traveling at 20-30mphb.) come to a screeching halt to pick it, and c.) hurl it high in theair in the hopes of clocking some Sierra Clubber in the head. Iimagined the type of grief they'd give us would be more along thelines of "you're causing erosionby riding in the rain" or "your squealing brakes scare the newts" butthis, this was just surreal, I mean what were the odds of thatmushroom I threw actually hitting someone in the head? I joke.

At the next regrouping point we came up two riders short, Alan,another sandal and no sock wearing guy, and FullFaceFred wereunaccounted for.One of the adventure racers on the ride decided to run back and try tofind Fred.

Ron and I rode upward to the next fire road intersection, and anyonewith cell reception tried to call Alan, no one had a number for Fred.This is when the rain really began to come down, we were all wet, outof food, pretty much out of water,and completely ready to get down to Iron Springs Brewing Company andeat fried food. After close to an hour of searching, calling, andcursing we came up with nothing,so we split into groups and descended the mountain in severaldifferent directions,hoping to run into our errant riders. Pete, Ron, and I were the firstback to Fred's truck...no Fred.

We went back to the house to get driedout, when the next group arrived at the parking lot, Alan had turnedup, but still, no Fred. So Pete got on the phone with search andrescue, just putting out Fred's description, Pete: "ya, red full-facehelmet, fluorescent yellow windbreaker, body armor..." Dispatcher:"sir, sir can you describe his face?" Pete: "Mam he's wearing a BRIGHTRED full-face helmet" Dispatcher: "that doesn't help me" Pete: "areyou serious?".It went on like that for quite a while.

Eventually one of the other riders found Fred at a parking lot veryfar from where his truck was on the west side of Mt. Tam. InitiallyFullFace refused a ride backsaying he "wasn't a quitter" and that he'd "been lost on a motorcyclein the Mojave desert", apparently he had a wealth of experience whenit came to getting lost.This was evident by some of the decisions he made after becomingseparated from the group. First off he didn't stay put, then hefollowed a stream because "water flows down hill" (which hill?), andmy favorite: he came to a lake and it was dark to the right and lightto the left so he naturally went left. Of course this took him inprecisely the opposite direction of where he wanted to go, it was wellpast noon and he wanted to go east, the "dark" direction...jackass.

After being informed that search and rescue was about to go outlooking for him and that fifteen people were waiting around expectingto hear that the rangers had found a fully armored body he acquiescedand took the ride back to his truck. Altogether a great ride to start the new year, I mean what's an epicride without a call to search and rescue? Can't remember the last timethat happened on a group ride in the Fells.

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About Big Bikes

I am a Blogger/Writer/Video-hack guy for hire. I write product reviews and other weirdness for BikeRumor. I cover races and do interviews for Cyclingdirt. I come over here to talk weird and curse a lot.